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Posted by Curt Welch on July 3, 2008, 9:43 am
> It's dawned on me that there are certain problems human beings face
> right now that are beyond our current ability to handle properly. The
> wildfires in California are one example. I'm not sure how long it
> will
> be, but in the future one can imagine a more robotic solution to the
> problem.
> (Other solutions include letting people have access to their own fire
> hydrants
> and not have to rely only on professional firefighters, and many more
> water reservoirs in storage in these areas prone to fires).
It's not that they are beyond our power to control. It's just that they
are not economically feasible. They are not practical. If we wanted to
stop all the fires in California we could do it. You just pipe in some
water from the other side of the country and install a sprinkler system to
water all the plants every morning. End of fires. Solving these problems
are not an issue of technology. They are resource allocation problems.
It's always a question of what solution is the cheapest. Is it better to
spend 100 billion to water all the dry areas of California, or is it better
to spend 100 million to train and staff a team of fire fighters to deal
with the fires when they start, or is it better to spend 500 billion to
develop and deploy giant autonomous fire fighting robots? It's not a
question of what we can do, it's a question of what is the most efficient
solution to the problem. Robots are not currently anywhere near the most
efficient solution to that problem (though it sure would be a fun project
if they were).
--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/
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> right now that are beyond our current ability to handle properly. The
> wildfires in California are one example. I'm not sure how long it
> will
> be, but in the future one can imagine a more robotic solution to the
> problem.
> (Other solutions include letting people have access to their own fire
> hydrants
> and not have to rely only on professional firefighters, and many more
> water reservoirs in storage in these areas prone to fires).